


Birthings

by Glishara



Category: Chalion Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold, Temeraire - Naomi Novik
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 12:34:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2812151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glishara/pseuds/Glishara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While on assignment in the Archipelago, Ista and Illvin's band finds some truly unexpected spoils of war...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Birthings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rthstewart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rthstewart/gifts).



Even after everything else that had happened, the sheer impossibility of the thing drenched Ista like a waterfall. She stood in the tent opening, transfixed.

Illvin, only a step behind her, perforce stopped as well, ducking his head to see between the tent flap and her shoulder. Ista felt his startled exhalation as warm breath on her neck, and glanced up at him with a quick smile, then moved out of his way.

The tent flap closed behind them, and they stood alone in the tent with the dragon egg.

“I never fully believed the stories,” Ista said, stepping closer to study the egg. “The dragonlords across the sea…”

“I have fewer problems with the idea that the stories were true than with the idea that the dragonlords across the sea may become the dragonlords of Roknar,” Illvin said. “How did Kyanin come by the thing? How many more do you think are out there?”

Ista placed her hand on the shell and considered. “I can’t answer that, though I hope some of our prisoners may. I think we have a more urgent concern, however.” She kept her voice light.

Illvin stepped up to her side, placing his hand on the small of her back. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“There are already cracks in the shell.” Ista looked up at Illvin with a quick, dry smile. “We’re about to have a baby. What do we do with it?”

#

A rapid pass through the captive Roknari turned up a man who seemed to have some knowledge of the dragon egg. He proved willing to purchase leniency through information. With his aid, Ista and Illvin were able to return to the tent with a harness, a half-dozen young men and women, and a general idea of what to expect.

“If we can harness it,” Illvin explained to the assembled company, “the dragon becomes an ally to all Chalion – a tool that can be of great value. If we cannot, then there is a risk it will turn feral and predatory, stealing cattle from our villages. Harnessing binds the young dragon to an individual – for life.” He surveyed the faces in front of him. “I don’t know what this will mean. There should be more time for you to consider, but we don’t have it. Is any of you willing to attempt the harnessing?”

The two young soldier-brothers of the Daughter's order in the front of the pack started to exchange glances, with a nascent How-do-we-back-down-from- _this_ -one look Ista sympathized with all too well. Their efforts were spared by the prompt, “I’ll do it!” from the shortest member of the company. 

Ista melted into a warm smile. “I was almost certain you would, Liss.” She held out her hands to the young woman, who took them with an answering grin.

“If they’ve invented a mount I’m afraid to ride, my lady, I haven’t heard tell of it yet.” Liss turned her grin up to Illvin, who matched it in kind.

“Does this young lady’s courage have any rivals in the crowd?” he asked, turning to survey the assembled young men. There rose a chorus of murmured dissents which worked out, in the main, to, “Well, if she wants it, who am I to deny a lady?”

While the men departed, Liss stepped forward at Ista’s side to gaze down at the egg. In the two hours it had taken to wrangle the Roknari and call up their eligible few, the cracks had spread significantly. “It could be any moment now,” Ista said. “This is all a bit haphazard. You must get it to agree to wear this harness before you feed it.” She pressed the harness into Liss’s hand.

“I understand, my lady,” Liss said, her face alight with the adventure on which she was embarking. She turned back to the egg, running her hand along the shell. “You’re doing just fine,” she offered encouragement to the undiscovered dragonet inside. “Just a little further…”

It was not as quick as any of them might have wished. Liss finally gave up and settled cross-legged on the floor to wait it out, and Illvin pulled in a camp stool for himself and a real, backed chair for Ista, for which blessing she rewarded him with a quick kiss.

“This would be more like a birth if there were more noise,” Ista observed finally. “Although the combination of stress and boredom is very familiar, as is the small voice in the back of my head demanding, ‘Why won’t it just happen and be done with it?’”

“Were yours very bad, my lady?” Liss asked, turning her head to look back at Ista.

Ista smiled tightly. “Mine were… complex.” She could remember, too vividly, those nightmare months of her pregnancies, plagued by visions, haunted, questioning her own sanity. “At the time, I thought them very bad, as I suspect all women do. In retrospect, they were not such bad birthings.”

“I just wish I knew what we were going to find at the end of this.” Liss leaned back, bracing her hands on the dirt floor for support.

“And so did I,” Ista said wistfully. Liss’s glance back at her was speculative, she thought.

When the egg finally began to crack in earnest, it did not take very long. The fine spiderweb of lines disintegrated, and an eight-inch square of shell fell away. Liss bolted upright and caught up the harness in her hand, then stood uncertainly, as if trying to decide what to do.

With freedom of motion suddenly in view, the captive occupant resumed its struggles more vigorously, and the shell cracked in two uneven pieces. The dragonet thus revealed had to scramble to free itself from the larger piece of shell, and tumbled awkwardly onto the dirt.

Ista’s breath froze in her throat at the sight of it. It was beautiful: as ungainly as all newborns, with dirt clinging to the oily-sticky goo from the egg. But it was something the eye could scarcely comprehend, impossible to believe. It was a brilliant jewel blue in color, with fine bones and a delicacy she had not expected. It stretched out one of its wings as if to inspect it, revealing a darker indigo underneath. Those wings, she thought, would nearly vanish against a twilight sky.

After the first moment of recovery they all needed, Liss took a deep breath and stepped forward, dropping to one knee before the dragonet. “Hello,” she said.

The dragon swiveled its head around to look up at her. Ista had no way of reading its expression, but it froze in place, as though waiting. It did not reply, but neither did it ignore her. A mixed reaction?

Liss tried again. “My name is Liss. I would like to be your friend, if you would.”

~Why are you talking so strangely?~ When the dragon answered, it was not in the Ibran which Liss had been speaking, but in Roknari, and Ista silently and brutally cursed herself for a fool. She’d never considered how the dragons were able to speak out of the shell, but if they learned through exposure – of course the creature would speak the language of its original holders.

Liss, whose Roknari almost nonexistent, sent a pleading look Ista’s way. _What do we do now?_ Ista hardly knew. Following Liss’s attention, the dragon turned to look back at Ista and Illvin, and stared up at them. “Try, Liss?” Ista said.

Liss grimaced, but fought to pull together her broken pieces of Roknari. ~I… You me friend?~ The dragon stared.

“Simple,” Illvin breathed at her. “My name is…”

Liss caught his eyes, and clung to them for an instant, then visibly calmed herself with a breath. ~My name is Liss.~ Rote phrases, memorized early. She managed it well. 

The dragon moved a little closer to her, almost close enough to touch. ~I don’t think I have a name. Would I know, if I had a name?~

Liss shook her head helplessly, clearly losing the thread of the Roknari. Ista did not want to distract the dragon, but risked speaking again, in the same quiet almost-whisper Illvin had used. “He doesn’t have a name.”

Liss exhaled, then tapped her chest and pointed to the dragon. ~Want?~ she asked.

The dragon considered. ~Yes,~ it said at last.

Liss’s face lit in a grin. ~Boy or girl?~ she said, pointing at the dragon. Ista hadn’t even thought to wonder.

~What are you?~ the dragon asked.

~Girl.~

~Me, too,~ the dragon decided.

Liss hesitated, glanced up at Ista, and then gently reached out to touch the dragon’s head. “Royina,” she said, using the Ibran word. Illvin reached out to take Ista’s hand, and she clung to it.

The dragon did not pull away from the contact. ~It is a good name,~ she decided. Her wings flicked out, making her appear much larger, and she announced, ~I am very hungry. Where is there food?~

Liss shook her head, unable to track enough of the speech, and Ista supplemented, “She’s hungry. See if she will take the harness.”

“I don’t know that word!” Liss hissed back at her, and Royina peered from her to Ista curiously. ~Why are you speaking so strangely?~

Illvin spoke. ~She does not speak the language you know very well. We are helping her to understand you.~

Royina turned away from Liss and rose to her hindlegs to inspect Illvin. ~Why not?~

~She speaks a different language. Perhaps you could teach her your language. Or she could teach you hers.~

The dragon dropped back down to stare at Liss. Liss held out the harness. ~You wear this?~ she asked. ~Then eat?~

Royina dipped her head. ~If you wish.~ 

With shaking fingers, Liss fastened the straps of the harness around her, and then she ran one hand down the glistening flank. “We are going to be good friends,” she whispered in Ibran. “And we are going to have wild rides together.” In Roknari, she repeated, ~Friends.~

~Of course,~ Royina replied, as if it were obvious. ~Now food!~

Ista smiled down at the pair, and rose to exit the tent. Illvin, still attached to her at the hand, perforce followed. Meat was sent for, and Ista sat by the fire, letting out a long breath. Illvin sat beside her, one hand on her back.

“This was the simplest part of the whole mess, you know,” Illvin observed after a moment. 

“Oh, yes.” It came out as more of a sigh than speech. “There are letters to be written, couriers to be dispatched… Where was the egg bound for? How many more do they have?”

“I do not relish the idea of the Roknari with a fleet of dragons to aid them.”

“No,” Ista agreed. She was silent for a moment, then smiled. “I will write the letters. But then, at least for today… let us celebrate a birth, rather than worry about tomorrow.”

Illvin’s smile still warmed her to the core. “As you will it, my lady.”


End file.
